


Those two fatal words

by Who Shot AR (akerwis)



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Broccoli Test, Gen, POV Third Person, Pre-Slash, Present Tense, Prison, Reading Aloud, bookporn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-20
Updated: 2010-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 01:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akerwis/pseuds/Who%20Shot%20AR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, Archie and the First Book in Several Years: A Love Story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those two fatal words

It is the first book Archie has seen in some years, and, looking at it, he feels as lost as Horatio seems while attempting to read it. His memories of reading end with his capture, and the memory of the weight of a story in one's hands is faint in his mind, just out of his reach.

Back and forth flit Horatio's eyes, made narrow beneath a frown of incomprehension. So far as Archie can tell, the man can only manage three words in a row before he must search through his accompanying dictionary. His one blessing is his surfeit of time; the sun is bright enough to light their cell for some time yet, and there will be no walks with the duchess-who-was-not-a-duchess to interrupt his progress throughout the afternoon.

Horatio's diligence does not last that long, however. When he has closed the book, evidently having given up on any possibility of plodding through the foreign text that day, he sees the hungry stare Archie has cast upon his books. "Would you like to try?" he asks, and offers the novel to him.

There is a jocular note to his voice, one Archie does not match when he replies, all seriousness, "If I may."

"You may." Horatio crosses the cell in a stride and holds the book out.

Archie forces himself to take it graciously, to resist the desire to seize it from Horatio's hand and clutch it to his chest. It is heavy in his hands, he thinks; there are thicker tomes in the world, but this book is weighted with possibilities no other has held for him. The moment he touches it, the sensory memories return like old ghosts, and he knows the dry scent of its pages before he has opened it.

The words coalesce in a similar fashion; his Spanish is primarily conversational, and if he ever read extracts of Cervantes, he no longer recalls them. As he scans the lines, though, and relishes the feeling of the leather binding beneath his callused hands, he begins to see on the page the rhythm and flow of the language. The guards' speech is here, as much as his old lessons are, as is the tinge of a world he has never before touched, Spain's answer to his beloved bards. Archie does not understand every word he reads, but he grasps enough to appreciate it. _En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme..._

He has been drawn so completely into the story that he does not at first hear Horatio call his name. When his friend repeats it, he looks up, tries not to appear unwilling in doing so; Horatio asks, somewhat curiously, "Would you not like the lexicon as well?"

"No, thank you," Archie answers. "I believe I have the general idea of it."

"You speak Spanish?" From the way Horatio's brow furrows--only slightly--Archie knows he is filing this information away.

"A little," he allows.

Horatio's frown deepens; he is on the verge of speaking, and remains so for what feels like a full minute. The hesitation is evident in his countenance as much as his voice as he asks, "If you would, do you think you might--read aloud for us?" He tries to smile; it is sheepish. "The duchess--" (not _Kitty_, for Hunter is here, rolling his eyes at the pair of them, now seated side by side on Archie's bunk) "has more faith in my ear for the language than I, but--I should like to hear the words in spite of that."

His first response is _no, I want to read in peace_, the selfish longing to be lost to this world until the sun sets. But it is only by Horatio's doing that he might even have the possibility--it is, after all, his book--and he cannot deny Horatio something so small as a reading when he already promised him to survive.

"Of--of course." And Archie begins the page over again, the words coming more steadily as he continues. "Quieren decir que tenía el sobrenombre de Quijada, o Quesada..."

**Author's Note:**

> I've bent canon just slightly to make this story exist by moving the "oh, you speak Spanish?" bit to this imaginary scene; I'd say sorry, but I don't actually feel guilty for it. ♥ Title is from a line in _Don Quixote_: "Those two fatal words: Mine and Thine."


End file.
